Celebrations!

For anyone who doesn't know me, I don't like crowds. I don't mind people in small numbers but crowds are NOT my favorite things in the world. I have even been known to have panic attacks and on very rare occasions pass out from being overwhelmed. For this fact and this alone I was very reluctant to go to the family Fourth celebration. The Leavitt family is pretty big, especially when the aunts and uncles and cousins come. Every year this get-together gets larger and larger. Not just family comes members of ward (church congregation) and friends of family and friends of friends show up. Last year there were 80 people, this year there was a gathering of well over a hundred people.
There was a ton of food and nearly enough actual seating, and definitely enough parking space (one of the advantages of living on a farm I guess). I just get freaked out by large groups of people.
I did end up having a very nice time though. Every time I started to get overwhelmed I would just go off on my own for a while (another plus for farm living). So I survived the day time activities and then the fire works came. Now most people go somewhere else to see a good show, BUT The Leavitt men are riddled with pyromaniacs. All we had to do was find a comfy spot and look up. The show lasted for nearly a half hour of constant large blast of commercial sized explosions. It was a spectacular show. Javin wasn't sure of it, OK, he was terrified of the noise. Gramma put ear plugs in for him but he still wasn't having any of it. We shouldn't have been all that surprised, the previous years have been much the same on that front. Once he was watching from the living room window he LOVED them. Orissa didn't seem to mind the noise at all. She sat peacefully in Meghan's (Aaron's cousin's daughter...not sure how that relationship works out for Orissa and Meghan) arms and ate through most of the excitement.
At one point the debris was falling pretty close to the spectators, in fact some fell on a few unlucky souls. I thought it would be great fun to go tease them for trying to be a bigger part of the show. After taunting them for half a minute some one shouted look out, I turned just in time to see a fiery thing miss my arm by centimeters. NO joke. I no longer could tease them since I was that close to being a bit more of the show that I would ever want. I sheepishly tucked my tail and went back to my chair.
I think Javin's favorite part of the visit was going to bed. We set up the tent in the back yard so he got to stare up at the stars and stuff. Which he did until he couldn't force his eyes to stay open any longer.





On the 5th of July we went to another party at Aaron's aunt Cindy's house. Tis was so much more my speed. The smaller the group the better,I always say! We got there in time for food yay! Then the Flav saw the pool in the back yard. YOu could say he like the water but that would be a bit of an understatement. He and I spent the next three hour there. He would kick and paddle...with only one of each. He also loved to throw the chew toy for the dog from the pool...you know you just can't waste time out of the water for that sort of thing. He kept trying to get the dog to join us...he wasn't having any of that.
Well I am sure I have shared enough for now. Hope all had joyful time over the long weekend!